Obama’s Downfall on Mideast Policy

Ignored in the hoopla over the latest Israeli and Palestinian political developments is a little-noted anniversary: It has been three years since President Bush’s May 15, 2008 address to Israel’s Knesset. Bush spoke in remarkably religious and biblical terms, describing Israel’s creation as not just a new country, but “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David—a homeland for the chosen people: Eretz Yisrael.” Bush added, “Our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul.”

The contrast in the respective religious flavors of the Bush and Obama administrations helps illuminate their differing approaches to Mideast issues. Moreover, it may highlight a serious misassessment of regional political realities by President Obama in continuing to lean on Israel for peace-process concessions.

Bush’s speech reflected his openness about his deep religious faith. His White House was famous for its strongly Judeo-Christian approach to foreign policy, saturated with concepts of good and evil, natural law, and the God-given nature of human rights, liberty and democracy. Bush and his team understood what it meant for people to be religious, and to live by the commands of their faith.

Obama, however, is of a more secularized and progressive world. His team won’t speak of Israel in biblical terms or of God’s promise to the Jewish people, but only in post-Holocaust terms. His urbane, liberal, intellectual circles are embarrassed by God-talk. Such sophisticates might be God-conscious for a few hours of religious service on a weekend or holiday, but God is largely kept confined to houses of worship. God is banished from any enlightened intellectual or international political discussion.

Such secularism, however, may cloud geopolitical vision. The Mideast is flammably not secular, filled with people who live and breathe their incompatible respective understandings of God’s word. Projecting our Western, tolerant worldview onto others, we underestimate the degree to which religion can motivate shocking actions, beliefs and political orientations, especially among radicalized populations: incomprehensibly evil as it may be to us, suicide-bombing is an act of supreme religious devotion.

Does the Obama administration truly appreciate the significance of dealing with religious populations? Obama’s infamous campaign statement that “bitter” working-class voters “cling to guns or religion…as a way to explain their frustrations” suggests incomprehension and condescension toward the religious. His refusal to recognize the Islamist nature of domestic terror attacks such as the Fort Hood shootings or blindness to the Islamist elements in this “Arab Spring” shows similar tendencies.

Famed scholar of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis, once noted that the West thinks in terms of nations subdivided by religions; the Islamic world thinks of itself as a religion subdivided into nations. Islam is the basis of both identity and loyalty, and has little tradition of separation between religion and state.

And let's not forget: the League of Nations decision to award the Mandate over Palestine to Gt. Britain was done so due to that "recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country".

DogWithoutSlippers

The Jews went into the old land of Israel. They tamed it and cultivated it. They raised families and contributors to the world in every area of science, literature, and culture. What have the muslims done? Not much except for killing, raping, unemployment, and a dying loyalty to a made up god by a mad killer, a pervert man, a man of extreme imagination and evil combined! Obama's stance in the Middle East reflects his muslim upbringing and is blind to the freedom and friendship of Israel. What was that about the winds? Well, they sure as hell are blowing!

madeinUSA

Well put Dog without slippers…what a well writen opinion!! Those winds will get real hot too!!

http://apollospaeks.townhall.com ApolloSpeaks

The Jewish Sate of Israel is here to stay. And there's not a friggin thing its Moslem and Leftist enemies (the Ahmadinejads and Noam Chomsky's) can do about it.

"And thereafter We said to the children Of Israel:"Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass,we will gather you together in a mingled crowd".Koran.((17;104,The Night Journey).
If they are so religious why don't these people follow their holy book? Israel castrated the Muslim monster many times at war and their machismo was lost. Infantile,like dangerous street gangs. It's not Allah it's testosterone! Obama is a lying hypocrite. It won't be there for the Christians either;eg.Christian Copts in Egypt. Because he is racist,he will only give lip service and smile. Like the rest of the anti-semites,he will hide his true feelings as whites hide their racism. What a world! G-d help us!

DogWithoutSlippers

The restraint of Israel against the Syrian border crossing protesters is amazing. Though really at this point in time the whole world is against Israel (a few friends – we use to be one) so what's the point of restraint! Peace will only be resolved when allah is gone!

phillyfanatic

Bama does not understand the radical groups like the Brotherhood in Egypt nor Hamas and Hezbollah in the faux area of Palestine. The fact that none of these radical Islamofascists want Israel to exist or America for that matter never comes into the socialist lovey-dovey mind of Bama. We in America have one friend in the ME; it is Israel, period. To think otherwise is just inane. If we had our own domestic energy program which Bama and his Dem clones in the Senate do not want, we would not even have to love and play footsey with Saudi Arabia. Time for the US to just tell the radicals , mature, stop your violence or the US will support full out and out…….MILITARILY against your incursions. Boy howdy, would the Left go wild and the Islamos would whine but remember how even the wuss Bama got Osama.

Alfonz Shmedlap

M., 05/16/11 common era

President Barak Husein Obama will only mention religion when it serves his progressive-socialist-communist purposes. There is a LOT more than a dispute about land involved in the Mideast. The Obamaphiles pooh-pooh such Torah beliefs as being unenlightened, retrograde dogmas. They, especially their Ivy League Elite, know what's best for all of us, hence regulating the type of lightbulbs we use, our waistlines, how our home toilets flush, ad nauseam. When it comes to G-d's promises to Abraham and to his seed forever– that's kid stuff. It seems that the world will continue the hard way, until the continued illegal Arab occupation of the EAST Bank is ended. May it be now.

PAthena

President Obama is anti-Israel and anti-semitic, having been a member for twenty years of the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Marxist "black liberationist," anti-semitic, anti-white racist, anti-American.

Andres de Alamaya

You wrapped it up in a clear, concise ball of truth. It's sad but it's fact. God help America.

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